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Chapter 13 Starting Positions


ruadath
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I had been looking for the factors that determine the starting position of units in Chapter 13 for some time now, and after doing some experiments, I've arrived at the following conclusion:

Assuming one plays through Lyn Mode, the positions of everyone except Dorcas, Serra and Matthew are fixed, and their positions are determined by the turn order inherited from Lyn Mode. Furthermore, this same turn order determines their position in Chapter 13x, along with whether or not you recruited Guy. The three of them seem to be loaded into the last possible slots in your character data, so Guy takes up a space before them (he is ahead of them in turn order).

I'll add screenshots elaborating on this later, but I thought it would be useful to put this out there for any speedrunners, LTC players, etc. who would like to fix the position of their units in Chapter 13.

In my opinion, assuming you're sending Dorcas south, for HHM the best position comes from the order:

Dorcas, Serra, Matthew

On the other hand, if you want Dorcas to head west (to break the snag or deal with enemies there or something), you probably want to go with the order:

Serra, Dorcas, Matthew

which is what you will get if you deploy Dorcas and Serra every chapter in LHM anyway.

As for Chapter 13x, the positions don't really matter too much since they all start out at the bottom right and aren't particularly useful on turn 1, but if you want to utilize Matthew to head east and block the bridge that will be created by the enemy breaking the snag on turn 1, Matthew shouldn't be in the first position. On the other hand, if you want Matthew to help you clear out the enemies in the northern part of the map on the first turn, Matthew should be in the first position so that he can get to the archer; Dorcas can't make it from that spot unless you give him the Hand Axe, and then he'll get countered. In this case, you probably want the turn order:

Matthew, Serra, Dorcas

assuming you want to send Dorcas south in Chapter 13 (otherwise just switch Dorcas with Serra).

Again, I'll add screenshots later to make this clearer later.

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Pretty sure different Lyn Mode players have had different positions for MARCUS, which is the one position that actually matters because him not starting on the only correct square deprives you of your chance to shave off a turn with a crit.

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Pretty sure different Lyn Mode players have had different positions for MARCUS, which is the one position that actually matters because him not starting on the only correct square deprives you of your chance to shave off a turn with a crit.

Yep, the reason for this is that if you don't play through Lyn Mode, there is no data to inherit from Lyn Mode, so Matthew is your second character before Eliwood, pushing everyone else a spot down (and in particular, putting Marcus into Rebecca's spot at the southern tip of your formation). Dorcas also gets placed before Bartre, pushing both Bartre and Oswin a spot down, but that doesn't matter as much.

There is no way to avoid this if you play through Lyn Mode, however.

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No lol, but I'll probably replay Chapters 10-12 doing the exact same steps except switching the order to change my starting position. Since I don't have to take screenshots, etc. this only takes like 15 minutes.

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Alright, so I've figured out an explanation for why this occurs. Basically, after completing Lyn Mode, since the game still needs to store all of the character data from LHM, it just takes your whole block of characters and shifts them down 12 spaces (the reason why 12 was chosen is still unclear to me) in the same order that they originally were. When reloading them in HHM, it doesn't sort out this block, it just leaves them as is until you get the battle preparations screen.

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Yep, the reason for this is that if you don't play through Lyn Mode, there is no data to inherit from Lyn Mode, so Matthew is your second character before Eliwood, pushing everyone else a spot down (and in particular, putting Marcus into Rebecca's spot at the southern tip of your formation). Dorcas also gets placed before Bartre, pushing both Bartre and Oswin a spot down, but that doesn't matter as much.

There is no way to avoid this if you play through Lyn Mode, however.

A little confused, but what you're saying is that if Matthew is fielded before Dorcas and Serra in LHM's chapter 10, Marcus will be at the necessary square to shave off a turn from the chapter? Is that it?

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No, sorry, that's not what I meant.

The starting position of your units in Chapter 13 (and 13x) is determined by the order the characters are stored in the game's memory. Usually this is the order you get the characters in, but when playing Lyn Mode before Hector's, the units from LHM simply have their addresses shifted down and are not shuffled when you add them back into the main party. Therefore, while the normal order you get characters in HNM/HHM is

Hector, Matthew, Eliwood, Marcus, Rebecca, Lowen, Dorcas, Bartre, Oswin, Serra

if you played LNM/LHM first, the order will be

Hector, Eliwood, Marcus, Rebecca, Lowen, Bartre, Oswin, (Dorcas, Matthew, Serra)

where the order of the units in parentheses is inherited from your LHM playthrough.

Thus you can see that the absence of Matthew early on in your unit order moves everyone up a slot, which puts Marcus in Eliwood's starting position and Rebecca in Marcus'.

Therefore if you play through LHM before HHM, there is no way to get Marcus on that square (even sacrificing units!)

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